Charles POV

“Power doesn’t die, it reinvents its reflection.”

The skyline outside was a field of fire and glass.

Cities always looked better when you viewed them from above when you could mistake chaos for beauty.

The gauze around my neck had begun to stick. I peeled it back, ignoring the sting.

The mirror caught my reflection, the half-burnt ruin of a man who once owned nations in numbers and secrets.

A king reborn from smoke.

The door opened softly. One of my new men, young and pale ...